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A Let Down

I am a huge lip product fan and I am always on the look out for something that I don't need to continuously touch up - this is where lipstain should come in. Here are my thoughts on this one.

PackagingThis is like a marker pen - very similar to other styles available at the moment. The packaging is mainly silver with colour in the middle - this is different depending on the shade. There is also a translucent airtight cap. I love this style of packaging it makes the nib very easy to easy whilst applying to the lips and the cap can stop it going dry. Unfortunately this is where the fun ends.

ColourI bought mine from Amazon and it was in the colour 'Tea Rose' I understood this was to be a light pink and was expecting a 'my lips but better' effect once it was on. This did happen and it looked great - for about five minutes. As a stain I would expect more like 5 hours! I tried putting more and more on but this did nothing but make my lips very dry and then the stain would seem to cling to dry parts and I'd look very odd indeed. I tried using this so many times but to no avail it just did not stain my lips.

PriceI bought this from Amazon for around £4 although I have seen it in Boots for £5.99. I don't feel either price is worth it. Maybelline is a great brand - you can see how much I love them by reading previous reviews but this just did not stand up to their normal quality offering.

AvailabilityThere are tonnes of these on Amazon but they can also be bought anywhere else Maybelline is sold but I would buy 17s Berry Stain instead!

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I wouldn't repurchase this

I had missed this product when it first came out, but I managed to pick this up in Boots recently. It cost me around £5.00 and I got the colour 'In the Buff' which is a pale rose pink colour.

This is quite a unique product. It comes in a silver and white pen style tube, but the lid and the end of the tube are coloured plastic which are supposed to represent the colour of the stain inside. But the unique part is the applicator. It is like a felt tip on the end. The actual product is very thin in consistency and does remind me of ink. The chunky felt tip applicator does help to get a very precise look though which is really awesome. The smell of the stain is also quite pleasant its sweet and fruity.

However, unfortunately, these are the only good things I have to say about the product. I mean, I can only speak for the colour I have and the experience that I have had with it but I would not recommend it to anyone due to my experiences.

When I apply the stain, because of it's very thin texture it comes out very very patchy. I find it very difficult to achieve an even stain. This stain dries matte which is sometimes a nice effect, but it leaves me with a very tight feeling on my lips and even when I apply a gloss over the top I find my lips still don't feel right.

Like I said earlier, the finish on this is very patchy. I get some spots on my lips that are very dark and some bits almost look like there is no colour on there at all. I have tried to remedy this by exfoliating my lips with my home made sugar scrub before using this product as I felt that maybe dry spots on my lips were absorbing/catching more of the colour. This didn't work for me, it was still patchy/blotchy.

I am disappointed in this product, I felt like it had so much promise to become one of my favourite products, but instead, it has made me steer away from some of there lip products. I also wish I could stay that the staying power was good, but I feel it was average.

I am giving this product 2 stars, one for the colour and one for the applicator. I'm sad that I couldn't give it more, but I just didn't have a good experience with it. I'm sure, like most products other people will love this one, but I really didn't.

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A very good lipstain

When I went down to London to see Matt Cardle's final gig of his tour this year I travelled down alone with the intention of meeting some lovely ladies I had got to know through twitter. The only problem was that we had only seen pictures of one another and so we did wonder how easily we would spot one another. We needn't have worried but when I arrived in London one of my friends told me that the other had said "we'll easily find Louise. Big boobs and red lips" and typically I showed up looking stereotypically as they had expected! Red lips is something that is relatively new to me as I never thought I could really pull it off but since probably around March I have loved having dramatic red lippy and so my sister bought me the Maybelline colour sensational lipstain for my birthday and this review focusses on my experience with the product.

Maybelline is a make up brand that I trust and I have used various products from their range across the years. This colour sensational lipstain comes in a format which looks pretty much like a chunky felt tip pen to be honest. It has a silver main section but then has a deep red coloured bottom part and the same coloured lid so it gives you a fair idea of the colour you are going to be getting. I believe there are ten colours to choose from and so you will probably find one that will suit your needs should you be interested in the product. On the tube the Maybelline name isn't all that prominent and in fact I didn't really realise it was a Maybelline product for a few days after I received it! The colour sensational name is much more prominent on the tube in my opinion. On the back the colour name is presented alongside a few other bits of information but this is in a white writing and against the silver background it doesn't really stand out and so you may struggle to find the colour name as I did. For reference the shade of lipstain I have is called cranberry crush.

When you remove the lid of the lipstain you can see that the tip does just look like one of those long tipped felt tip pens that you can get! The nib is now totally covered in the deep red coloured lipstain as I have used it plenty of times since I got it in April but initially it is just a white colour and I found that the colour did soon flow through the pen and in to the tip so I could apply it to my lips. I find applying this lipstain to my lips really easy as the felt tip style nib just allows you to draw on your lips and it is quite accurate. If you do smudge you should make sure you wipe it away quickly because obviously the clue is in the name and this will stain your skin for a while! This cranberry crush lipstain is a really intense colour when you apply it on your lips and it stands out massively. You aren't going to be unnoticed when you wear this colour and that is something to be mindful of. I only really use this product when I have done my full make up including eyeliner so that it doesn't look out of place being so bold. I find this is a great look when I am going out for a night out and want really stand out make up!

The lipstain as promised does stain your lips for a couple of hours at least. I find that you really need to colour this all over your lips including a little in the underneath part of your lips so that if you have a habit of pulling stupid pouty faces for pictures to send to your friends like I do on snap chat you are going to have a full colour look on your lips. I find that when this fades though it fades unevenly and so I tend to use it with another lipstick or something over the top so that it gives a really strong base colour which is topped up less frequently than if I were just using a lipstick on its own. This method really works for me and I am happy using it in this way. At the end of the night I am able to remove it pretty easily using my make up wipes.

This 3ml lipstain seems to not be available in places such as Boots and so I don't know if it is discontinued but they are available on places such as amazon through various sellers where prices start at £2.49 and this does not include postage and packing charges or there are some at around a fiver which do. I think it depends on the colour you are after. I do recommend this product, particularly in this cranberry crush colour which gives me a really dramatic, sexy looking pout I think.